Tricia Jenkins, Ph.D. is a podcaster and professor of film, TV, and digital media at TCU in Fort Worth, TX. She is the author of three books including The CIA in Hollywood, as well as Superheroes, Movies, and the State. Her new podcast, Worldwide: The Unchosen Church, features stories about growing up in the Worldwide Church of God- a doomsday apocalyptic cult. We talk about issues facing children and second-generation members born into cults. Details about Herbert W. Armstrong’s authoritarian cult group, an influential Christian right group, and its history are fascinating.
8 comments:
Why put this crap up here?? I grew up WWCG, and now attend another group. Never have I once thought I grew up in a cult. Look at the leadership, and that is where you will find the cult mentality, and simply dont follow a person based on that. Follow God.
Because someone cannot do things on Friday nights, or celebrate Christmas like the rest of the world...you feel you're in a cult, becasue you "missed out". Poor baby. I shouldn't even comment, because to do so is casting pearls before swine.
Wow Anon @ 9:39. Yup. You are definitely in an offshoot. It shows.
Well, it does separate people from other Christians when they cloister away on friday night and Saturday and avoid Christmas or any weekly mainstream religious ceremony.
I will state that you point out these differences like friday night and Christmas are no big deal and that people should stop whining about them.
Well, if something is easy and no big deal, then it is likely not the measure by which God would separate Christians by. You are not special for warming a seat on Saturday instead of Sunday. You are special if you’ve accepted Christ as your Savior and have fruit of repentance.
The WCG taught that mainstream Christianity with all its martyrs, missionaries, hospitals, and other forms of giving and sacrifice were fake because they were “unwilling” to make the effort to observe the sabbath and holy days.
I’m sure many a Christian martyr would find that an interesting belief.
Wow you really should
Look into what’s happening in the PCG. And it ALL stems from HWA. You can do your own research by simply reading the co workers letters beginning in 1934. That’s a great place to get started. But I suspect you aren’t interested in opening your mind to the reality of Armstrongism.
I do believe that ACOG are a cult, but notice this "a Christian Right group"! What, Christian Right? What in the world is that? Political Right, as opposed to Left/Liberal? In what sense are ACOG Right-Wing? Because they do not promote abortion and sexual perversion? This podcast seems to be as cultish as ACOG themselves. Disgusting.
I commented above but agree fully with you about Hassan and others that disparage what they call the Christian Right.
What people tend to forget was that in original Radio or Worldwide, there was the written teaching, ie, PT, GN, booklets, co-worker letters, visible to "the world", and then the oral teaching to which only members were a party. The written, preserved and available today on several websites, can present a false picture of what really went on in HWA's church. Those library sites preserve the sanitized version which was often rendered innocuous so as to prevent or minimize persecution from "the world". As such, it often appears relatively reasonable. The oral stuff from sabbath services and private counseling sessions amplified the written, and believe me, it was very conservative, in fact, hard right. If there were choices in interpretation with scriptures, the most fanatical extreme was always chosen. That was seen as defining the difference between Philadelphian and lax Laodicean.
I believe that if current splinter members were suddenly miraculously transported back in time to HWA's church of the 1960s, it would be a horrendous shock to all of their systems. That was the frying pan! And it was in no way due to the culture of that day. We were like right-wing counter culture, if there is such a thing. The prevailing culture of the "Leave it to Beaver" era was considered to be very liberal, permissive, and lawless by comparison. If Ward and June Cleaver had been WCG members, Beaver and Wally would have been getting the hell spanked out of them every day, they would have been pariahs at school, and they wouldn't have even been allowed to speak with their friends Larry Mondello or Eddie Haskell. Hell, they wouldn't have been able to get their small pox or polio vaccinations! They'd get mediocre test grades occasionally because they gave the answers taught by HWA on their science, history, and health tests, instead of what they were taught in the text books. If you didn't give the HWA approved answers, it was considered to be lying. My parents wouldn't even allow us to watch Beaver because of the horrible language they used. And, I'm not talking about swearing! (Gasp!) They actually used slang instead of proper English! My parents were horrified by the beatnik character "Maynard G. Krebs" on Dobie Gillis! They must have been certain that the end was here when the Beatles turned everyone into hippies about five years later!
So, next time someone describes HWA/WCG/AC as being extreme right wing, let it slide! They're only telling you the truth!
Well 9:39 you’re only looking at the surface of things. See if you were one of those families destroyed because of instead of a family member needing a doctor visit for a simple operation but didn’t and the worse case scenario happened. If you were a part of a family being destroyed because of the divorce/remarriage policy. Or coming into the realization that all your tithes and offerings for all those years went to nothing as worldwide church went to an apostasy. Then to look at all these splinter groups basically do the wash rinse repeat. You had an organization that had a segregation policy and only changed their minds because they wouldn’t be tax exempt if they didn’t change. They had the gift of prophecy, but 1975? Come on
You can keep all the sabbath, holy days in the world. The Pharisees did it more stricter than anyone, but Christ said unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of them, then you are not entering in.
All that sabbath keeping, all those tithes all those holy days and that original organization imploded with its college. But somehow the other Christian’s colleges have continued for over a century. Maybe Paul was right, if you do not have love, you have nothing.
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